After he debuted the latest in a series of wacky stunts, dating service and scholarship fund Grouspawn, I caught up with Groupon CEO Andrew Mason backstage at TechCrunch Disrupt to talk about the recent Groupon backlash, the company’s success problem and how transparency can scale to hundreds of millions of dollars in deals in 150 cities around the world.
Highlights:
“We wanted to make sure that Groupon babies were the smartest babies out there …”
“It’s cheaper to allow customers to punish us quickly, and we’ll take the heat on that if it leads to a better product.”
“Everything that was part of the Groupon experience when it was in one city all exists on the same level now.”
“If you’re open with people and provide context for the decisions that your making, customers will stick with you.”
“Are you wearing bronzer?”
Currently valued at $1.35 billion, Groupon (which does not currently disclose its traffic and userbase stats) is unique in its explosive growth, having created an entire movement of daily deals site clones.